


à la Sainte Terre

by Karmageddon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, F/M, Flirting, Interracial Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-07
Updated: 2009-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karmageddon/pseuds/Karmageddon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were both foreigners before they were foreigners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	à la Sainte Terre

Whatever it looked like, Miko was **not** hiding. She was just here to catch her breath.

(If only one person knew she was here, and she wouldn't get back 'til the simulation results were processed and everyone involved had been screamed at? Well, that was just a coincidence.)

At 1:34 AM the mess was deserted. Most of the lights were dimmed and just a single section of the serving bar was lit up, a bin of ice pellets with a bowl of hopeful looking fruit and a few tightly wrapped sandwiches. Next to it, the coffee machines buzzed quietly.

She chose the sandwich that looked like it was deepest in the ice, passed a little guiltily on the fruit, and took a blue jello that she figured she could eat very slowly. She checked her watch: the simulation results should be coming in just about . . . now. She picked a table next to the window, hoping to watch the waves in the city's glow.

She'd barely put her tray down when she saw him. Sauntering in.

_Saunter_. The word always made her think of her TOEFL prep course. From _à la sainte terre_, "to the Holy Land". In the Middle Ages, idle people would wander the countryside asking for charity, under the pretense of going on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. An etymology she later learned is probably incorrect. And needless to say, the word didn't appear on any of the (three) versions of the TOEFL she took.

_What a metaphor for what we're doing here_, she thought. _Story of my life._

Ronon sauntered from the counter to her table and swung his leg over the chair like a hurdler, letting his tray down with a clatter.

"Needed to escape, huh?"

"Yup". The word was muffled; her mouth was full of sandwich.

* * * *

They met on Miko's first field assignment.

"Miko--right?" He clapped her on the shoulder and motioned to her clothes. "Field gear! Looks good!"

She smiled and pushed up her glasses. She'd thought she'd feel ridiculous, but she actually felt kind of cool. Off-world assignments were much-coveted with the scientists: among a group who'd given up everything from spouses to Starbucks to be on the Cutting Edge, off-world work was the cutting edge of the cutting edge.

Besides that, competition for off-world slots was part of the desperate one-up-manship that defined everything about the scientific community in Atlantis: the continual race to be better, smarter, **first**. In between rounds of saving themselves from a gruesome, gory death, there were reputations to be made and lost and a pecking order to be maintained with a viciousness that was matched only by its laughably small stakes.

Here, without publishing, funding, jobs, or even parking spaces to be fought over, every scientific breakthrough became a victory; every setback became a humiliation. It was all blown so completely out of proportion that a non-iniate would never guess that most of their work was far from galaxy-saving, and in fact, was more like the scientific equivalent of World of Warcraft.

Additionally, benefits of going off-world included the opportunity to have sex with people at a fitness level that would normally put them far, far out most of the scientists' league. There was something very satisfying about having the type of guys that took your lunch money in high school fighting each other for your attention. Or least, so Miko had heard. It hadn't actually happened to her yet.

She found it hard not to fidget with the pockets of her tack vest and resist the urge to triple-check the safety on her weapon (**not** "gun", the scary Marine in Off-World Training had ground into them).

It was even harder not to hope, secretly, that they'd run into some Wraith. In no small part because Ronon looked like he could definitely handle it.

Maybe it was being out of the lab, maybe it was fresh air, but later, while they worked, she'd felt brave enough to return his flirtation. She held his gaze when she caught him looking at her, laughed whether she understood his joke or not (usually not).

By the end of the third day their fingers touched as they passed food across the table; by the end of the second week they sat next to one another without having to make a big production out of it. By time they went back to Atlantis--delayed twice, once because their work just wasn't done, another time because Atlantis had gone on lock-down when a fern escaped from the botany lab, injuring two scientists--they'd talked about childhood pets, the travails of trying to read English, and best ways to work the Atlantis DVD barter system.

A month later they'd made it to lost loves.

Melena was just twenty-seven when she was killed. Miko wasn't sure what to say, especially because Ronon's voice was just an unexpected mixture of pained, wistful, and affectionate.

_I'm sorry_ was all she could up with.

"Thank you." Ronon nodded, not looking at her. It sounded rehearsed, mechanical, like someone told him that's what he was supposed to say in this situation. Sheppard, maybe--or he read it somewhere. Like perhaps there was a _Customs of the Tau'ri Wiki_ somewhere that no one from earth knew about.

She felt like maybe she should tell him something very personal in return, but nothing came to mind. The scar on the back of her neck was from falling off a bunkbed having sex her junior year of college; she'd once trawled through the Ancient database for four days following up on a comment that Rodney had made while half-asleep, his mouth full of carrot stick.

Neither of those seemed to fit though, so she clasped his hand and said, "that must have been hard for you."

A couple months after that, Ronon told Miko how 'Dex' was Melena's name--western Satedans had one name; eastern Satedens almost always had two. He'd learned pretty soon after he moved east that a person really needed two names to be taken seriously, and he was going to get in the way of Melena's opportunities if he didn't fit in. He'd used it ever since.

(_Wow_, Miko thought for at least the thousandth time, _people really are the same everywhere. Interesting that we were both foreigners before we were foreigners_)

Ronon's eyes sparkled at her mischeviously, like he was proud of getting away with something.

"Only other person knows that is Teal'c."

Miko raised her eyebrows.

"Yup. He was pretty mad he hadn't thought of it first."

* * * *

Miko only told two of the other scientists about her and Ronon. By that time, they were practically living together. It had happened a bit fast, but she wasn't worried; everything in Atlantis happened either painfully slow or stomach-droppingly fast.

After one of the people she told reacted badly, she never told anyone again.

"The . . . the big guy?"

"Yes. The one from Sateda."

"Oh. Wow."

"So, what do you think?"

"It's good. Great. I think you deserve some . . . pointless fun. Help you move on and all."

Miko knew better than to ask what she meant by that, or to waste her breath with _I doubt **you'd** be smart enough to stay one step ahead of the Wraith for seven years_, or _trust me, he only does the whole 'noble savage' routine for people like you_.

Later on, when everyone knew about them--by that time, even Teyla and Sheppard nodded to her in the halls--she never lied about it but she never brought it up. She was too afraid of trying to sound like she had to justify something. There were some things her English was never going to be good enough for. Things she didn't **want** it to be good enough for.

* * * *

Miko watched the jello vibrate on the end of her fork. She looked at her watch and gauged that she could justify five more minutes.

Ronon was watching her with thinly disguised amusement. He scraped up the last bits of jello with the tip of his spoon.

She smiled. By that time, they'd made it to companionable silence.


End file.
